emzhengjiu Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Yes I am! Not my own kids though, I thoroughly enjoy my daughters. I have worked in a recreation center for the past 3 years. This year I've noticed kids getting more and more disrespectful and disobedient. Usually the parents are not at the center. Saturday, I yelled (really loudly) at a group of young teen boys. They wouldn't stop what they were doing and started talking over me. I rarely raise my voice. I don't want to become someone who screams / yells at kids...but it's so hard. I'm still responsible for the center when I'm on duty. Our center is for everybody, babies to the elderly not just teen boys. Then another group of teen boys started roughhousing with cup of soup noodles as the center of attention. While one teen was trying to eat two other teens were trying to pull out the noodles from the cup. Plus, they were on the basketball court where no food is allowed. Can you imagine the mess they made! It took me 20 minutes out of a very busy Saturday, but I made the boys clean up the mess. Once again, I had to raise my voice before they would listen. A couple of them told me it was my job to clean. I must have giving them the "look of death" because they backed down quickly. They would not clean until I threatened to talk with the center's supervisor today and ask that they be suspended for a day or two. Finally, they cleaned. I left work exhausted and highly annoyed. Unfortunately, days such as Saturday are becoming more common. What I've noticed in myself is I tend to have a harder, sterner attitude with all the kids because it's tough for me to switch from nice to mean back and worth all day. I don't want to become this person who yells at anyone but especially not a kids. I don't if this if just a vent or a call for advice. Either way, thanks so much. edited: spellinng Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janie Grace Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I think that if unruly teen boys are becoming a persistent problem, the solution isn't for you to spend all your time and emotional energy dealing with this. I think you need to talk to your supervisor about an email to rec center members that addresses the problem. "Recently, we have had some issues with teens -- roughhousing, lack of responsiveness to our staff, etc. If you have teenagers who use the center independently, please review with them the importance of courtesy and respect for our center rules, including XYZ" (whatever the issues are). It should also outline the procedures that will be followed in the case of rule violation. When rules are violated, you simply follow procedure (whatever it is). You shouldn't have to make a difficult decision, come up with a punishment or use your words/tone to cajole them into compliance. Just a formula… this action leads to this kind of warning, failure to comply leads to this consequence. Period. Kids will be kids. And they get to learn from natural consequences if they choose to be jack-a$$es. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I find that yelling, used very judiciously, works :-) I am not a proponent of screaming at kids, but I have a very small voice and I HAVE to yell to get a loud group to hear me at all. I also think groups of rowdy, immature boys in the 12-14 age range, respond best to commands rather than polite human conversation. If you're in charge of a pack of wolves, try not to take it personally and just BE the Alpha dog. I think (as a group . . . I KNOW about all of the exceptions) they respect that and don't tend to hold grudges. It sounds like they pushed back and tried to get you to clean up the mess, but you didn't back down and made them do it. I'm glad you did that so they KNOW you will follow through. It's HARD being "the village." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emzhengjiu Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 I think that if unruly teen boys are becoming a persistent problem, the solution isn't for you to spend all your time and emotional energy dealing with this. I think you need to talk to your supervisor about an email to rec center members that addresses the problem. "Recently, we have had some issues with teens -- roughhousing, lack of responsiveness to our staff, etc. If you have teenagers who use the center independently, please review with them the importance of courtesy and respect for our center rules, including XYZ" (whatever the issues are). It should also outline the procedures that will be followed in the case of rule violation. When rules are violated, you simply follow procedure (whatever it is). You shouldn't have to make a difficult decision, come up with a punishment or use your words/tone to cajole them into compliance. Just a formula… this action leads to this kind of warning, failure to comply leads to this consequence. Period. Kids will be kids. And they get to learn from natural consequences if they choose to be jack-a$$es. This is a great idea, but so far the manager of all the centers has not agreed to the policy. He feels that the staff on duty should be able to handle the situations that develop. I'm hoping that my supervisor will back the staff. i don't know if it matters but the center is in a low income area. Parents are not always very responsive or helpful. A number of them don't speak English very well either. ETA: I live in the same area since we're also low income. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I'm the mean old lady at our center. I have had to be consistent and not let them get away with anything for months (very close to a year). And I was a huge squeaky wheel with my supervisors. I wrote "incident reports" about every single problem and cc'd them to every single person up the chain of command so that one person could not sweep it under the rug. I was meticulous about following all rules and guidelines myself so that none of those incidents could be traced back to me doing the wrong thing. I went for back-up even though the back-up didn't want to back me up, over and over. (I had to do this for safety reasons esp. with some of the older teens.) When people (ie. patrons) would come to me to complain about an issue that they wanted me to address or to compliment me on dealing with an issue, I asked them to quick fill out a comment card about it so that the administration could see that this mattered to the patrons and not to just some grumpy old lady who happened to work there. We didn't have a turning point until the main instigators were suspended AND the director personally called their mother! Now there are small incidents but all I have to do most of the time is to stick my head in the door and they straighten up. Or if one kid starts to act up, the other kids use peer pressure to get him to behave. The other night some kids were bored and were starting to bother others but I heard a (rather loud) "Dude, stop it, don't you know SHE's in there?" Then I saw some kids quickly stick their head into the room I was helping in. I gave them a smile and a little finger wave. After five minutes they were still milling about - not causing trouble but I could see it happening soon, so I went out. We're at the point now where I don't have to yell or be mean. I just told them that the program they were waiting for wasn't going to start for 35 minutes and that seemed a long time to have to wait around. They said, "How about if we go down to the Teen room?" I thought it was an excellent idea. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel Yell Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 :iagree: EVERYTHING Jean in Newcastle said! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emzhengjiu Posted December 2, 2013 Author Share Posted December 2, 2013 I'm the mean old lady at our center. I have had to be consistent and not let them get away with anything for months (very close to a year). And I was a huge squeaky wheel with my supervisors. I wrote "incident reports" about every single problem and cc'd them to every single person up the chain of command so that one person could not sweep it under the rug. I was meticulous about following all rules and guidelines myself so that none of those incidents could be traced back to me doing the wrong thing. I went for back-up even though the back-up didn't want to back me up, over and over. (I had to do this for safety reasons esp. with some of the older teens.) When people (ie. patrons) would come to me to complain about an issue that they wanted me to address or to compliment me on dealing with an issue, I asked them to quick fill out a comment card about it so that the administration could see that this mattered to the patrons and not to just some grumpy old lady who happened to work there. We didn't have a turning point until the main instigators were suspended AND the director personally called their mother! Now there are small incidents but all I have to do most of the time is to stick my head in the door and they straighten up. Or if one kid starts to act up, the other kids use peer pressure to get him to behave. The other night some kids were bored and were starting to bother others but I heard a (rather loud) "Dude, stop it, don't you know SHE's in there?" Then I saw some kids quickly stick their head into the room I was helping in. I gave them a smile and a little finger wave. After five minutes they were still milling about - not causing trouble but I could see it happening soon, so I went out. We're at the point now where I don't have to yell or be mean. I just told them that the program they were waiting for wasn't going to start for 35 minutes and that seemed a long time to have to wait around. They said, "How about if we go down to the Teen room?" I thought it was an excellent idea. ;) Jean, this exactly what I'm going to have to start. We're only begun having the more seriously disruptive issues. The group dynamics have changed. I'm going to start this week. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. I don't have a choice if I want to retain any of my sanity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurie4b Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I think that if unruly teen boys are becoming a persistent problem, the solution isn't for you to spend all your time and emotional energy dealing with this. I think you need to talk to your supervisor about an email to rec center members that addresses the problem. "Recently, we have had some issues with teens -- roughhousing, lack of responsiveness to our staff, etc. If you have teenagers who use the center independently, please review with them the importance of courtesy and respect for our center rules, including XYZ" (whatever the issues are). It should also outline the procedures that will be followed in the case of rule violation. When rules are violated, you simply follow procedure (whatever it is). You shouldn't have to make a difficult decision, come up with a punishment or use your words/tone to cajole them into compliance. Just a formula… this action leads to this kind of warning, failure to comply leads to this consequence. Period. Kids will be kids. And they get to learn from natural consequences if they choose to be jack-a$$es. I agree with this. You yelled because you didn't feel like there was an alternative. When there is an alternative in place (ie snacks on the basketball court = 2 day suspension), then all you would have had to do is say: The three of you are suspended for having food on the court. If you clean it up now, the suspension is 2 days. If I have to clean it up, the suspension will be one week. (or whatever the management has agreed to.) Then it's not up to you to exert personal power to keep things orderly. You'll be using institutional power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aura Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I agree w/ the others, I just wanted to say that if you need to get people's attention w/ out yelling...particularly loud kids...use an air horn. They even make small versions that are easy to stick in your pocket. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fraidycat Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Well, I've always been "that mean old lady who hates kids", so I don't blame you for yelling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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